


fighting (your) demons

by NightsMistress



Category: Ys Origin (Video Game), イース | Ys
Genre: End-Game spoilers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Toal's route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:07:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: Hugo Fact, after all that has happened in the Tower.





	fighting (your) demons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fortune_Maiden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fortune_Maiden/gifts).



Even with transport spells allowing the Ys rescue party to jump from anywhere to the relative protection of the goddess statues, the Demon’s Tower is a forbidding structure to search. This is especially the case when those people don’t wish to be found. Lady Reah, at least, won’t attack Hugo, but it’s the threat that Zava and Kishgal pose that keep Hugo’s nerves on a knife’s edge as he searches each floor for their presence.

His breath catches in his lungs, his staff is uncomfortably warm in his hands from all the magical energy he’s channeled through it, and the corona surrounding each of the Eyes of Fact make his bones ache. He’s been searching the tower for days, always alert for the next demon attack, and the moments of respite are few and far between. There are so many demons inside their tower. Every demon he strikes down does nothing to thin out their numbers, and there appear to be an endless supply of demons ready to tear him apart.

Of course, he knows that’s actually true. Every time he uses magic, he creates demons. They all do.

Hugo strikes a demon down with his magic anyway. The demon shrieks as it dies, a high-pitched screech that somehow sounds like a condemnation. The demonic essence in his soul hungers for more death, wants him to plunge into the depths of the power it offers him and then to destroy everything around him. Hugo has no time to consider what that means, instead focusing on what is directly in front of him.

Another demon tries to attack him from behind, this one clearly undead given the suppurating flesh hanging from its body. The first time Hugo encountered an undead demon, its body rotting away even as it moved towards him, he had wanted to throw up. Now, he just takes aim and fires, the crackle of his magic mingling with the sweet chimes of Lady Reah’s silver bells. The demon dies, this time permanently, and Hugo takes the opportunity to catch his breath and take stock of his surroundings.

This is not his first time in the Blighted Blood section of the tower, as he had passed through it previously. It hasn’t really changed from what he can see. The blood-red water laps at the strange coral-like shore, eerily beautiful in the dim light. The water looks almost inviting, but Hugo knows better. He’s fallen into that water several times while under demonic attack, and this section of the tower more than lives up to its name. It turns his stomach to know that this is what the demons have transformed Esteria into: a twisted mockery of its tranquil beauty. The only consolation is that the water hurts the demons more than it does him, which is strange given that it was demons that built the tower in the first place.

Hugo shakes his head, snorting at his own stupidity. There’s little purpose in trying to make sense of demons.

His breathing comes easier now that he’s not fighting, though breathing is never easy here. Hugo always feels like he’s choking, though whether it’s from the acrid air that sears his lungs or under the dissonance between his memories of this place and what it has become is unclear. He certainly sounds like he’s suffocating, his ragged, desperate breaths the loudest thing here now that all the demons in this area are dead.

His father would chastise him for being so affected by the Tower, by Toal, by everything that he has encountered during his terrible exploration. The only thing he thinks his father would not fault him for is the grip he keeps on his staff as he searches for signs of recent occupation. His father had been very adamant that no Fact would ever drop his staff regardless of how exhausted he is, and had made that clear during their lessons.

Hugo grips the staff tighter and tells himself to pay attention to his surroundings rather than to the past. Not that there’s anything really here for him to see. There’s signs of demonic infestation, which Hugo knows because he literally just killed the demons in question, but there’s nothing that suggests a more intelligent occupation of the area. That’s consistent with what he’s found on the lower levels so far: lots of demons but nothing to suggest that the Darklings are there lying in wait. So far, it seems that the Darklings have pulled up stumps and headed for higher ground. Or, at least, all for Epona.

Hugo tries not to think about why Epona is down at the base of the tower.

He’s not successful.

He swallows against a rush of bile at the memory of how he had hurt someone who had tried desperately to help him, despite the fact that he would be fighting against her her if she was successful and he regained his sanity. Hugo doesn’t know what he might have done if Toal hadn’t shown up to talk him down, but he suspects that some part of him would have relished the pain he inflicted on Epona. Everything after he had accepted the demonic essence inside his soul had felt like a pleasurable dream. Or, he is ashamed to admit, a seductive dream giving him everything he wanted. He was powerful, he was untouchable, and he was unstoppable. The memory makes him feel hot and unsettled in his own skin, and he swallows convulsively.

He’s distracted from his thoughts by the sound of Eolia’s voice in the Lila Shell, calling his name, and raises the shell to his ear.

“Yes, I can hear you,” he says.

“We’ve just broken Lady Feena free.”

That is marvelous news, given the strength of the barrier keeping her captive. Eolia sounds exhausted, but also triumphant, which is entirely reasonable. Once the rescue party return to Ys, the sorcerers are likely to be lauded as miracle-workers given what they have done with the resources that they had.

“Thank you,” Hugo says, and means it. “I’ll be there shortly.”

He looks around one last time in case he has missed something. He sees nothing he hasn’t seen before. Satisfied, he pulls his transportation crystal out of his pack and teleports to the walkway of Rado’s Annex.

He can feel the wind on his face and he opens his eyes to the sight of the scarred Esteria stretching out below him in a terrible vista. Hugo shakes his head to clear the vertigo that has been plaguing him for the last few days; he’s not the only one exhausted, but he is the only one who can wield the Eyes of Fact. Also, Toal has made it further up the tower than any of them, and Hugo will be damned if he gives up before Toal does. He puts on a burst of speed, striding across the spindly walkway towards the impossible structure of the annex, and then up the spiraling flight of stairs to where Lady Feena had been kept captive.

He pushes the door open, still panting from the exertion from the stairs. Lady Feena is in the centre of a half-circle of sorcerers. She looks frightened but determined as she stretches her wings out to their fullest extent before bringing them closer to her shoulders with a decisive snap.

“I have to go on ahead,” she says to Father Shion. “I’ll show you how to get there, but I must meet Reah before …”

She looks across at Hugo then, and her mouth tightens over the words she was about to say. Her eyes are sad and bright with tears.

The old Hugo would have demanded answers of her. Hugo keeps his mouth shut. There will be time to ask questions later, especially as he suspects that it is about Toal and his emotional state is too frayed to deal with terrible revelations about Toal.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Cadena assures her. “Just focus on getting to Lady Reah.”

Lady Feena nods slightly. “Thank you,” she says, and uses her magic to leave the Annex. Hugo blinks as he feels his sense of the Tower expanding up several levels in the same way that his perceptions alter whenever he purifies a goddess statue. Wherever Lady Feena is going, she manages to spare the time to make their passage up the Tower easier.

Hugo wonders why she is doing that now, and then forces himself not to think about that. That, along with how his father knew that Toal was down here in the first place, are things that he does not have time to think about at this stage.

“Let’s go,” Cadena says, taking her own transportation crystal from her pack. “Now that the spells surrounding this place are gone, we should be able to transport ourselves further up the tower and meet the goddesses at the top.”

“I’ll let the knights know to join us,” Eolia says.

Hugo takes his transportation crystal from his pack, focuses his will one more time, and forces himself upwards.

He opens his eyes to a new sight: a long spiraling staircase that goes up for several floors, leading up to the top of the tower. The other members of the rescue party appear rapidly, and Galleon gives the knights their orders. They are to go on ahead, and act as Ys’ sword and shield while the sorcerers prepare their magic, and only once everyone has arrived at the top will they strike to protect Captain Fact.

It’s been a long time since Hugo has heard the title Captain Fact. Even through the haze of his own exhaustion, he can see the way that his brother’s position energizes the knights for one last push, brightens the smiles of the sorcerers clustered behind the knights. Once, Hugo would have resented how beloved his brother was. Now, it simply is something to consider later.

For now, they must scale the remainder of the tower. Hugo forces one foot in front of the other, his legs aching and trembling with each step. The staircase is dizzyingly high, and Hugo’s head spins as he cranes his head back to see how far the stairs reach. Sound carries in the thin air, and Hugo can hear the noises of a brutal battle, his brother’s voice and, strangely, his father’s voice. He must be tired if he is hallucinating his father’s voice, as the Six Priests are too valuable to risk coming down to the surface. Hugo puts his father out of his mind by forcing himself to pick up his pace. His control over the Eyes of Fact is fraying and he doesn't want to lose control over them on a narrow staircase.

Then, everything changes. Between one step and the next, the demonic essence in his soul is sealed away. Hugo stumbles, catching himself against the rough wall of the Tower, and focuses on not falling off the side to his death. He hadn’t realized how much effort he had been expending to resist the pull of the demonic essence, and now he is off-balance. He hangs his head, forearm resting along its length against the stolid stone, and breathes. It’s so much easier to breathe now. He doesn’t understand why.

“Um…” Miuscha says. “Are you okay, Hugo?”

Hugo looks up.

Miuscha is hovering anxiously nearby, her hands caught together in a nervous vice. She smiles, fleeting and self-conscious, but her shoulders relax as she sees his face.

“You look better,” she offers. “Before, you looked … strained.”

Strained was as good a word as any Hugo could come up with; stretched thin under the weight of his father’s expectations to his breaking point. He is so tired that the analogy makes him start laughing, a bubbling giggle that escapes him and doesn’t stop even under Miuscha’s startled regard. She reaches out, hands already alight with healing magic, and he waves her way.

“I’m fine,” he assures her, swallowing down his laughter. “We need to find out what has happened.”

He glances behind her, shakes his head in disbelief, and stares. Esteria is restored, the open wounds of volcanoes healed and the scars covered with fresh plants, the sky an impossible blue, and the taunting cry of demons replaced by birdsong. It's impossible. It's a miracle. It's something that only Lady Feena and Lady Reah could do with the Black Pearl. The Black Pearl, from which the demonic essence is spawned. The demonic essence, which is now gone.

Overhead, at the summit, Toal’s anguished cries sound like his heart has been torn from his chest. Hugo remembers how sad Lady Feena had looked before she left, and doesn't need the impetus of Cadena urging the sorcerers onwards to finish scaling the tower. The growing dread inside him is impetus enough.

* * *

The Black Pearl is sealed, the demonic threat neutralized, and Esteria restored. It’s everything that Lady Reah and Lady Feena had aspired to, and all it had cost was the heart of Ys itself. Losing the twin goddesses is a bitter victory against the forces amassed against them, and one that the rescue party feels particularly keenly.

Yunica is weeping like a broken-hearted child, clinging to the statues of the goddesses and promising them that she will take care of everything while they sleep. The other knights and sorcerers are more restrained, but it is clear that they know the enormity of what Lady Reah and Lady Feena have done by the sag of their shoulders and their subdued voices.

Hugo doesn’t feel a part of their sorrow. He feels empty and wrung out, unable to muster any more reaction of himself today. Later, he will grieve Ys’ loss, but for now he feels like an observer watching other people mourn the loss of their entire way of life.

Or, at least watching most people. He can’t look at Toal, who is looking at Hugo like he is the last precious thing in this world. He wouldn’t want this attention under ordinary circumstances, and he especially doesn’t want it now when the love of Toah’s life is half of the seal over the Black Pearl, and the man whose affection Hugo tried so hard to win is the reason why she is there.

Father Shion clears his throat thickly, and Hugo turns to him. Father Shion’s face is pale and set, but he does not shed tears. Or, at least, not yet. Hugo supposes that there will be tears later, once his charges are safely back inside the Shrine of Solomon.

“Once we have entombed Lady Reah and Lady Feena, we should return to Ys,” Father Shion says. “We need to seek the counsel of the Six Priests.”

Toal snorts wearily.

“We have one here,” he points out. “What does Priest Fact wish of us?”

Hugo looks around for his father, only to remember that his father is sealed inside the Black Pearl and is no longer entitled to that title. Toal is instead referring to _Hugo_ , and Hugo gasps as the full extent of what has happened begins to dawn on him. His father is a traitor. His father tried to kill everyone in Ys. His father had been leading the Darklings. His father had been shaping him into a tool and Hugo, more fool him, had gone along with it despite knowing that he didn’t want what his father was offering. His father is now a demon, and the reason why the rescue party must return to Ys empty-handed.

Lady Reah and Lady Feena’s frozen bodies waver in his vision as Hugo realizes that while not everything is his fault, he is responsible for a significant portion of it. Sound and sight are drowned by a wave of dizzy nausea, though he can hear his brother’s alarmed voice.

When his vision clears, Hugo finds himself sitting on the ground, blinking dazedly up at his brother’s worried face. Rico and Miuscha are kneeling in front of him, Miuscha’s face a mask of concentration and Rico studying him with the earnest attention he gives his Cleria metalwork.

“I’m uninjured,” he says to Miuscha. “You don’t have to worry about me,” he adds to Rico. He doesn’t know what to say to Toal. Miuscha’s healing magic washes over him and Rico raises his eyebrows skeptically.

As Miuscha’s magic settles into his bones he begins to feel better, the magic bolstering him where his weakness would cause him to crumple. He feels less light-headed now, though he wouldn't trust his legs to support his weight just yet. He smiles his thanks to her and she blushes brilliantly. Rico settles back on his heels, seemingly satisfied at what he sees in Hugo’s face.

It's humbling to know that despite how awfully he has treated them, Rico and Miuscha still want to support him. They're truly better friends than he deserves.

“Everyone, take a break,” Galleon says. “We’ll begin our descent after our stamina has returned.”

After _Hugo’s_ stamina returns, and Hugo flushes in mortification that his weakness is delaying their return to their family and loved ones.

“Can I have a moment with Hugo?” Toal asks. For someone who has spent the last few days being uncommunicative and surly, he can be quite solicitous at times. Miuscha and Rico rise to their feet. Hugo starts to join them, not wanting to have this conversation at all, but can’t quite make it to his shame.

“He’s difficult, isn’t he?” Toal says to Miuscha and Rico. “I’m glad that my little brother has such good friends as you two.”

“Sorry, Captain Fact,” Miuscha says.

“We’ll go over there,” Rico says, pointing to the far edge of the tower. “I think I saw the Roda tree over there.”

Hugo, having run into the Elder Roda tree on his arrival in Esteria, is pretty sure that it’s in the opposite direction. It’s possible that Rico has seen the younger one, but he’s skeptical. Still, it’s better than the alternative, and he tries to rise to his feet once again.

“Stay down,” Rico says. “You’ve been working harder than the rest of us.” He smiles then. “I really did see the Roda tree.”

“Besides, little brother, we have things to talk about.”

Hugo doesn’t want to talk to Toal. “We don’t,” he says sharply. “We should be heading back to Ys, not coddling me. This is nothing.”

“You sound like our father.” It is said mildly, but Hugo flinches all the same.

Toal sighs and sits down next to Hugo. Now that Hugo isn’t looking up at Toal, he can see the profound grief beginning to carve lines in his face. Hugo remembers the anguished cry of earlier, and feels a pang of sympathy towards him. He’s still resentful of the years that Toal had never been home, but now it seems unfair to place that guilt on shoulders already sagging under the weight of recent events. Hugo can understand what it is like to lose everything.

“You look awful,” Hugo observes. “I take it father presented a challenge?”

“Without your help, I would never have succeeded.” And then, to Hugo’s surprise, Toal ruffles his hair. “Snatching the Goddess Ring was a clever move. Good work.”

Hugo scowls in annoyance. That was something that Toal used to do when Hugo had succeeded in his magic studies, before he had gone away to join the Knights of Ys. It’s a gesture towards a precocious child. Toal smiles, and his hand drops away.

“I suppose now you’re too old for that now. My little brother, all grown up.”

“You would have seen it if you hadn’t left.” Left the House of Fact to join the Knights of Ys, left Ys to sow discord in the demons’ ranks to buy time for Solomon Shrine’s ascent, left the rescue party to struggle through the tower while searching his own solutions. Hugo isn’t sure which one he means. Perhaps it’s all of them.

“I know.”

“And don’t call me Priest Fact,” Hugo adds. “That’s not me.”

Toal looks startled at this, which doesn’t surprise Hugo. After all, Toal doesn’t know Hugo at all, and it’s all by his own doing.

“You were father’s successor,” Toal says finally.

Hugo shrugs. “Only because you weren’t there. I was never his first choice.”

“You were the better choice. Two Eyes of Fact?” Toal shakes his head. “I would have struggled to control one.”

“And look where all of Father’s magical ability got him,” Hugo says bitterly, gesturing at the Black Pearl sealed away between Lady Reah and Lady Feena. “I hardly think he’s a good judge of what the head of our house should be like.”

“And what do you think the head of the House of Fact should be like?” Toal asks, as if he truly wants to know what Hugo thinks.

“A hero,” Hugo says. “And so that can only be you.”

He expects Toal to say something derisive. Instead, he studies him carefully. “You’re a hero as well,” he says finally. “And far more magically talented than I’ll ever be. But if you ask it of me, I’ll do it.”

“Why are you agreeing so readily?” Hugo demands. “After all, you ran away from it to find your own path. Why do that, if you were just coming back to it in the end?”

“Because it means that you’ve finally thought about what you want to do,” Toal says simply. “I haven’t been a good older brother to you, but this I can do for you.”

Hugo squirms under Toal’s proud smile. It’s just not _fair_ that the man can lose his lover, and still manage to smile.

“It’s nothing to be proud of,” he retorts. “It’s just more practical. You were always father’s preferred choice, and you’re a hero of Ys. If anyone can remove the stain on our family’s honor, it’s you.”

“You sell yourself short,” Toal says. “And what do you want to do?”

“I …” Hugo begins and trails off. He wants to be somewhere where he can put all the power he’s accrued to good use. The malevolent glint of the Black Pearl is potent reminder of the perils that come with amassing power for its own sake, as are the memories of what Hugo did with only a fraction of the demonic essence.

Strangely, he’s reminded of Epona. Not the way her face twisted in pain under the force of his magic, but the fierce, clear way she looks at the world. She may be a Darkling but she’s thrived here without the help of the goddesses. He doesn’t agree with her motives, but he wants her clarity of purpose for himself. He’ll only find that here, where his name matters for nothing and all that matters is what he can do to rebuild the civilization of Ys on the surface.

“I want to say here,” he says finally. “There’s a lot to rebuild, and I want Lady Reah and Lady Feena to wake up to Ys. Not … some abandoned wilderness.”

Toal doesn’t look surprised at this. Perhaps he had already realized that Hugo would never go back, not after ceding his title to his older brother.

“There are some shelters that we used on our way to the Tower that should be serviceable for now,” Toal says. “I can mark them on a map. Or …” and his expression becomes sly. “You could ask Epona where they are.”

Hugo blinks, flummoxed. “Why would I ask Epona to help?”

Toal laughs. Hugo scowls.

“Ah, little brother,” Toal says at last, once he stops laughing. The fondness is even more exasperating than the laughter. “If only I could see the two of you work this out.”

“Work what out?” Hugo demands.

“He’s all yours,” Toal calls out to Rico and Miuscha, who have been pretending very badly not to listen in. “I think you three have something to talk about.”

“Wait! Work what out?” Hugo demands as Rico and Miuscha head over to him and help him to his feet. “And what does he mean, we have something to talk about?”

“We’re staying too,” Rico says. “Who would keep you out of trouble, if not us?”

“Are you sure?” Hugo asks. “What about you, Miuscha? It’s going to be hard here on the surface.”

“I’m sure,” Miuscha says. “It will be hard, but it’s important.”

It will be hard, and it will be important. As Yunica and Roy pick up the goddesses to teleport them down to the base, Hugo muses on this. He thinks he’s up for the challenge. After all, if Toal is going to redeem the family name by his deeds, Hugo will be damned if he does less than his older brother. But that’s not the only reason. He has a lot to make up for, and rebuilding Esteria will go a long way to redressing the balance.


End file.
